


the gravity that holds me down

by astrotheology



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Declarations Of Love, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gay Robots, Light Angst, M/M, they love each other so fucking much you guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-28 22:14:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18765325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrotheology/pseuds/astrotheology
Summary: “What did I do to deserve you?” Chromedome wondered aloud.





	the gravity that holds me down

**Author's Note:**

> I felt awful today. Some people write robots loving each other to cope.

The tension was obvious from across the room. Perhaps not to the oblivious outsider, but the familiarity of a million years plus change had given Rewind the preturnatural ability to know when Chromedome was lost in the wrong kind of thoughts at a glance. It appeared in the way he set his shoulders, the stillness he held himself with, the way that his left hand clenched on the arm of the chair he sat on, and the way that his right hand worried the back of his neck with blunt fingertips. Rewind could read him more easily than he could Neocybex.

He approached his conjunx with gentle steps. Chromedome appeared not to notice. His gaze was set firmly on the stars in front of him, his visor and mask on firm in the public space of the observation deck.

Rewind followed his gaze. The Lost Light was passing through a particularly empty piece of space. Not much could be seen outside the thick glass of the large windows other than pinpricks of light in the far distance against the deep black of pure nothing. Some flickered, hundreds of thousands of light-vorns away. It wasn’t much to look at, but there was a beautiful simplicity to the sight that was soothing. Blue-white dots against void. Chromedome sought out these sorts of views, Rewind knew. In the miles and miles of labyrinthe ship, there were a few places Rewind could more often than not find his conjunx; the observation deck, perched in one of the soft seats, staring at the expanse outside was top of the list.

It was technical night on the Lost Light. The lights were dimmed to preserve power on most decks — here was no exception. Rewind’s own biolights provided more light than anything else other than the stars. Chromedome’s visor glowed soft yellow in the dark.

Rewind reached out with his EM field before saying anything. Sensing the familiar field, Chromedome dropped his hand from his neck and finally turned to see Rewind’s visor peering at him from a few mechanometers away. He said nothing. Rewind couldn’t feel his field.

“Hi,” Rewind said, softly, and dared to move closer. The closer he came, the more he saw Chromedome shrink in on himself. The set of his shoulders tensed. His left hand grasped his right arm. Tension, tension. Rewind’s spark clenched.

“You look deep in thought,” Rewind ventured. He sat himself on Chromedome’s left, perched a few feet away, keeping his distance. There were times Chromedome would shy away from touch, shut down. Rewind, fluent in his conjunx, gathered this may be one of those times. He tilted his head towards the larger mech, keeping his hands folded together in his lap. His servos intertwined. Chromedome may have not even wanted the company, but Rewind knew he needed it. He carefully pressed outwards with his field again, suffusing it with as much tenderness as he could. Chromedome again did not move, but there was a quiet hiss of hydraulics and the minute relaxation of his shoulders. If Rewind could have smiled, he would.

It seemed to take Chromedome a few moments to gather himself up enough to find his voice synthesizer. When he did, his voice was low. “Lots of things to think about,” he said. Rewind’s field stayed extended towards him. Chromedome’s servos relaxed.

“Oh?” Rewind prodded. He turned his visor back to the window. “Give me an example.”

Chromedome didn’t reply for a moment. “How black is not a color,” he said finally. He waved a hand vaguely at the sight of deep space outside. “Just the absorption of all wavelengths of light.”

Rewind ex-vented and dropped his gaze to the floor. So he wasn’t — they weren’t — going to talk about it. Whatever “it” was. He swung his pedes as they dangled above the floor.

“Lack of light makes black,” Rewind replied lightly, “but the combination of every color paint makes black, too.”

“Fair point,” Chromedome said.

Rewind untangled his servos and crossed his arms, leaning back against the backrest of the seat. “Black’s everything and nothing at all. Simply depends what it’s made out of — light or paint.”

“Poetically said... I think.”

“Is it?”

“Is there some deep philosophical bent to that I can’t make out?”

Rewind shrugged. “I’m a documentarian, not a philosopher.” 

Chromedome hummed noncommitally. 

The pair sat in neutral silence for what felt like hours and seconds all at once. Chromedome’s optics tore away from the window to turn to the smaller mech to Rewind’s tentative delight. The minibot felt his spark turn a little faster. He set his right hand down on the seat beside him, servos splayed so that Chromedome’s own could fit between them. Rewind hoped Chromedome would read him as well as he could read Chromedome.

There was a hesitance to the motion, but after an achingly long period of time in which Chromedome just stared at the subtly-offered hand, he released his right arm and laid down his servos so that they extended in between the spaces of Rewind’s hand. The two did not touch, but felt interlinked all the same.

A success. Chromedome’s field trickled towards Rewind like a lava floe, textured with emotions Rewind couldn’t identify, ones he bet his conjunx couldn’t either. Rewind let Chromedome pour it in his direction slowly until he felt the churning, boiling pool surround him.

Rewind caught himself feeling glad that the two of them were alone as he choked out an ex-vent at the experience. Fighting off the overwhelming instinctual urge to close himself off, he instead pushed back at the prickling field with as much of his field as he could muster, coloring it with affection, peace. Every sharp edge in his conjunx’s field he could find, he attempted to smooth. Visibly, audibly, Chromedome relaxed under the attention. Plating Rewind hadn’t noticed was hitched upwards on Chromedome’s chassis settled into their normal positions, and a peculiar engine whine Rewind recognized as stress petered out after a little while, leaving only a contented thrum behind.

Chromedome initiated the touch. Rewind was startled out of his concentration, snapping his optics back online and realizing at some point he’d shuttered them when he felt Chromedome’s hand lift up the one he’d set on the flat surface of the seat between them and hold his small hand gently in his larger one. A servo stroked the back of his hand with the same degree of gentleness Rewind would expect one to touch a priceless object. 

He looked at their hands twined together before looking up to find Chromedome’s visor and mask had been removed. When did that happen? Oh, didn’t matter, Chromedome interrupted his train of thought by pressing his forehelm to the crest of his own. Rewind recieved a glyphless ping of _thanks/adoration_ from the mech next to him, who was now gripping his hand with the ferocity of a mech in fatal pain and flooding his vision with bright yellow optics.

“What did I do to deserve you?” Chromedome wondered aloud. He murmured it with a reverence Rewind had never heard in another mech, but had heard from his conjunx more times than he could recall in his memory (and he had a very good memory). And although Rewind had heard this sentiment countless times before, the deep thrill of being the subject of awe made his spark full to bursting.

“Exist around me,” Rewind answered. “Be you. That’s what you did.”

Chromedome faltered. “I don’t think that deserves _this_ much,” he said, half to himself.

Rewind took the opportunity to plaster himself to Chromedome’s side after said mech pulled his helm away and upwards. Oh, _slag_ this whole business of not touching! There was a beautiful section of space in the observation window that simply begged to be cuddled in front of and a conjunx that simply begged to be cuddled. Chromedome’s body language stiffened, but relaxed again once Rewind settled into a position with an arm curled behind his waist and over his hip bar and helm pressed against his chassis. Rewind shuttered his optics as he listened to the comforting rumble of Chromedome’s engine behind the metal.

“Rewind...” Chromedome began, and Rewind could just _feel_ his optics darting to the entrance of the empty deck in the tone of his voice.

The minibot waved a hand in the air without conviction. “Primus forbid I cozy up to my conjunx.” Chromedome let out a small laugh at that, and the sound reverberated warmly in his chest. Rewind felt a hand settle around his waist, pressing him that much closer.

Time passed: a long while of simply holding and being held. 

“I love you, you know,” Rewind said. Chromedome’s vents stuttered. Rewind’s optics opened and glued themselves to the stars. “Whether or not you _deserve_ it — and you _do_ , but that isn’t the point — I choose to love you regardless. And I know you would never deny me my freedom of choice, now, would you?”

Chromedome did not answer for a very long time. When he did, his voice was the smallest that Rewind had perhaps ever heard it. “No. I wouldn’t.”

Rewind nodded. “Good.”

“I would question your judgement, but—“

“My judgement?” Rewind leaned forwards craned his helm upwards to shoot him a look. Chromedome had the decency to look abashed. “My _judgement_ ,” Rewind said insistently, “tells me you are a handsome mech. A beautiful mech. Tall, aerodynamic. Strong shoulders, pretty wheels...” Rewind chuckled. “A gorgeous face he insists on hiding for some Pit-damned reason.”

“I-I’ve told you a thousand times, it’s—“

“Irrelevant. Whatever you were about to say, it’s irrelevant, because I am not done with you.” Rewind extricated himself from Chromedome’s side with no small sense of loss, but continued onwards with passionate purpose. He pushed himself up onto his pedes and stood on the seat, then situated himself to stand inbetween his conjunx’s legs, hands planted on his hips, directly between Chromedome’s bare, puzzled, and beautiful face and the stars.

“My judgement says you are a mech with his history and his troubles. My judgement says you feel so deeply and strongly that you don’t know what to do about it half the time. My judgement...” Rewind trailed off, lifting his hands from his hips to bring them to either side of Chromedome’s face. “It tells me that you care about me. That you took your brilliant mind and great capacity for love and brought them together and decided to love _me,_ out of all mecha.”

Chromedome’s optics were wide, two shining yellow lights in the deep dark of the room around the two. They searched Rewind’s visor for hesitance, dishonesty, recalcitrance, and found nothing.

“My judgement, Chromedome, says you’ve been so many people before. So many different versions of yourself.” Rewind tilted his helm. His voice softened. “Tells me you are trying to be the best of them.” Chromedome’s optics shuttered, and Rewind felt him shaking very quietly underneath his hands. He took the chance to swipe his thumbs over Chromedome’s faceplates with the same gentle touch his conjunx had held his hand with. Tenderness could, and would, go both ways.

“I-I don’t...” Chromedome stuttered.

Rewind ignored him and leaned forward to press his facemask against Chromedome’s lips with infinite care.

When was the last time they’d kissed like this? Sure, he’d held his conjunx’s bare, maskless face in his hands, kissing him as if he jostled him he’d break before. He probably had _recently_ (his memory recall centers weren’t functioning properly at that moment), but Rewind felt there was something different about this one. He basked in the familiar sensation of it, the warmth, the closeness, the tickle of Chromedome’s hands ever so light on each side of his chassis, and delighted in its well-worn (yet somehow brand-new) feeling.

When he pulled away, Chromedome’s face was pained. It twisted something in Rewind’s chest so hard he feared that he’d hear it snap.

“I really don’t tell you I love you enough, do I?” Rewind said softly.

Chromedome rearranged his face suddenly, quickly exchanging the pained expression for a small smile. He nuzzled his face against Rewind’s hand still on his cheek. “You don’t need to. I know you do.”

“I don’t think you do.”

Chromedome didn’t look at him.

Rewind directed Chromedome’s face back towards him to meet his own optics. Gold met determined, fierce blue. “I love you,” Rewind said firmly. “I will say it as much as I please. I choose to love you.”

Without warning, Rewind turned and plopped onto his conjunx’s lap with a loud metallic clang that echoed throughout the empty observation deck, making Chromedome jump and exclaim despite himself. The minibot crossed his arms over his chest and settled himself to lean back against the warm metal of his new chair.

“You are beautiful, you are _good,_ I love you... and there is _nothing_ you can do about it,” Rewind said with confident finality.

Eons stretched inbetween the statement and Chromedome winding his arms around Rewind possessively.

“Thank you,” Rewind thought he heard someone say, but with how quietly it was said, he couldn’t be quite sure he heard it at all.

A thought came to Rewind’s mind.

“Were you really sitting here thinking about the color black?” Rewind asked. “Is that _honestly_ what goes through your head at the unholy hours of the night shift?”

“Is what goes through _your_ head waxing completely nonsensical about the color black?” Chromedome retorted easily. “ _Definitely_ stick to documenting.”

Rewind made an indignant noise as Chromedome laughed above him. Strong white arms trapped the minibot against his cruel captor of a conjunx as he attempted to wriggle his way out of philosophical criticism.

Stars passed by, very slowly.


End file.
